The deadline is approaching to sign up for health insurance for the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and one Syracuse agency that signs people up for plans wants to make sure the word about that deadline is out.
February 15 is the last day that individuals can buy health insurance during this year’s open enrollment period. People who don’t meet that deadline will face a tax penalty.
Steve Wood, of ACR Health in Syracuse, expects there will be people who won’t meet the deadline.
"It’s in the media constantly. There’s enough materials out there but people don’t pay attention,” Wood says. “So it worries me that there are quite a few people who will be uninsured because they’ve missed open enrollment.”
ACR Health offers navigators who can help insurance shoppers wade through the state exchanges where they can choose from among three types of policies from several insurance companies. ACR Health has helped just over 2,000 people complete applications since November 15 last year -- when open enrollment started. About half of those were re-enrolling. Wood says now they are starting to hear from people who didn’t sign up last year.
"We’re dealing with a whole new group of people coming in that just got their taxes done, just got assessed a penalty, and they don’t want it for next year,” Wood said.
That penalty is going up. Last year people who went without insurance could owe as much as one percent of their income in penalties. The penalty goes up to two percent when people file their 2015 tax returns.
